Liuzhou, the Ming and Qing dynasties have been fighting for the Xiaobeishan Fort for fourteen days.

Xiaobei Mountain is the only high ground near Liuzhou City, and it is the only passage connecting Liuzhou City with the land. Therefore, before the war began, the Taiping army built fortifications on Xiaobei Mountain, and all the dozens of artillery pieces left in Liuzhou in the artillery town were placed on the mountain. As the most elite brigade in the town, the Fourth Town A Brigade undertook the heavy responsibility of guarding Xiaobei Mountain.

At the beginning of the war, Xiaobeishan became the target of repeated contention of the Qing army because of its geographical importance, and in order to take this high ground, the line Guoan constantly drove the army to charge Xiaobeishan. Within 14 days, a total of more than 3,000 troops launched two attacks, and more than 1,000 troops launched seven or eight offensives.

Under the repeated attacks, the Fourth Town A Brigade stationed in Xiaobeishan suffered heavy losses, and the Qing army also paid a heavy price. After 14 days of fighting, the Taiping army suffered more than 1,400 casualties, and the Qing army suffered more than 4,000 casualties.

Now, Xiaobeishan is still firmly controlled by the Taiping army, and the Qing army, which has been unable to advance for half a month, has stopped the offensive, but has not retreated

A large amount of wood is piled on top of the mountain road with a slope of more than 40 degrees in Xiaobei Mountain, and both ends of the wood are fixed with long nails pierced into the ground. Several iron cannons weighing 1,000 pounds are being pushed up by manpower on this mountain road. In front of each cannon, dozens of Taiping soldiers dragged it with long ropes, and behind the cannon, there were also seven or eight men pushing up with red faces. Last night, a heavy rain made the road muddy, leaving everyone on the trail covered in mud.

At the end of the trail is the main slope of Xiaobei Mountain. Po Nan is a series of shacks built with thatch and branches. The Taiping soldiers who had been rotated in front rested in this shack, which had no beds but large bunks. The ground was covered with thick hay and leaves, and a quilt was laid on top. Dozens of extremely tired Taiping soldiers were huddled on it and fell asleep. They are so tired that the sky will fall, and I am afraid that no one will want to open their eyes.

The smell of food was in the air, and the soldiers were boiling pots and pots of food just so that their comrades could wake up with a mouthful of hot food. Because the cannon was being transported up the mountain, hundreds of wounded could only wait on the slope with the help of the people, and only after the cannon was pulled up was they carried down the mountain and sent into the city of Liuzhou. Each wounded person had to be cared for by two or three people, and the people were also tired and staggering.

On the eastern slope of Xiaobei Mountain, I don't know when graves were piled up, and the graves were buried with soldiers who died in battle. On the north slope, copper and iron cannons are lined up against the mountain, and solid iron balls are placed on both sides of the cannons with bamboo baskets. In the trench under the ring fortifications, the soldiers of the Taiping Army leaned or armed with firearms, spears and broadswords.

Shelling, gunning, arrowing, spearing

Xiao Beishan is like a giant armed to the teeth.

The silence was broken after an hour, and as the horn sounded again in the Qing military camp, the soldiers of the Fourth Town and the Artillery Town, who were seizing the time to rest, once again plunged into a tense battle.

The Qing army's offensive was obviously more fierce than before, and at the sound of the horn, the Taiping soldiers in Xiaobeishan saw thousands of Qing troops marching out of the barracks.

As in the previous attacks, the Qing army also drove the captured Han people to fill the ditch with mud.

The Taiping army did not think so, because the Qing army drove the people to fill the ditch with mud many times, but each time it failed. But this time, they were a little nervous, because they found that the people who had been driven over were dense and could not see the end of the day.

The frightened people were driven to Xiaobeishan by the Qing army in batches, some of them digging the soil, others carrying sacks to receive the soil, and then handing it over to those who were going to rush up to fill the ditch when the soil was full.

"Prepare to fire!"

Niu Gensheng, the artillery commander and from the Han Army Banner, put down the clairvoyant mirror and shook his head, he was already numb, for those civilians who were not counted in the casualties at all, his heart could only be ruthless, otherwise, he would fall.

In these days, human life is not valuable.

The men under the fortifications at the front began to load the medicine and check the fire rope under the orders of the officer. No one believed that those people would fill the ditch, but this time there were too many, and the kind of people who came like a tide really doubled the pressure in their hearts, made people's scalps tingle, and made people tremble.

"Rush up, throw the bag into the ditch and withdraw it immediately, if you don't want to die, you have to move quickly!"

The cavalry of the Qing army rushed forward with sabers on horseback and drove the cannon fodder.

This time, it was not only the people who moved forward, but also a group of Qing troops with bows and arrows and firearms on their backs.

Driven by the Qing army, the people who filled in the soil had no choice but to cry and cry for their mothers and run forward.

The people were noisy, and the Taiping army was in the fortifications, quiet and unusual, moving and quiet, which was very strange.

Finally, the people who were burdened with the soil rushed to the trench, and then they heard the sound of cannons, and then countless cannons rang out. The roar of the cannons drowned out the sound of the firing of the guns, and at this moment, only the sound of shelling could be heard in the ears of the people, and nothing else.

Countless civilians driven by the Qing army were ruthlessly killed by the artillery, and iron balls flickered and jumped in the dense crowd, bringing up countless corpses and taking countless lives.

With the sound of thunderbolts, rows of people were struck by the guns, or fell to the ground or fell into ditches. But the people behind were not afraid, and frantically stepped on the corpses of the people in front of them, threw the sacks full of dirt into the ditch, and then ran towards the road without looking back. In the roar, many civilians who were not injured by the artillery and guns were pushed directly into the ditch by the people behind, and their bodies became part of the trench. The person was alive, but countless sacks were thrown over his head, directly pressing him into it.

The soldiers of the Taiping Army only mechanically charged, ignited, and fired according to their usual training. They didn't even look at the people they had killed, because they didn't dare to look.

The Qing army calculated the unimaginable density of firearms from the Taipings, and they drove more civilians than ever before, only because the speed and density of the Taipings' guns and artillery were not enough to suppress the speed of filling the ditches.

The Qing cavalry in the rear supervised the formation and constantly slashed and killed the people who were frightened by the cannons and ran backwards, and under the threat of their fierce swords, the people could only rush forward, hoping that the Bodhisattva would protect themselves from being hit by the guns.

There have been no natural disasters in Guangxi in recent years, and the people have been able to live their lives, but there are no natural disasters, but there are military disasters. Like the neighboring province of Guangdong, the Ming and Qing dynasties fought back and forth in Guangxi, resulting in the destruction of domestic production, the dispersion of the people's wives, and the plummeting population. And near Liuzhou, it is because the Qing army's massacre in Liuzhou is almost empty. (To be continued.) )